Acer: New Direct Sales Web Site Will Help Channel

The new shopacer.com Web site is a number of initiatives Acer planned for the year to increase awareness of the Acer brand while building an e-business relationship with its channel partners, said Mark Hill, director of U.S. channel sales at the company.

Advertisements for Acer products, especially its TravelMate 102 series of tablet PCs based on Microsoft's Windows XP Tablet PC Edition operating system, will invite users and small businesses to the shopacer.com site and invite them to visit links to solution providers, Hill said.

The shopacer.com Web site was quietly opened Nov. 7, the day Acer was allowed to announce availability and pricing of its tablet PCs according to the contract signed with Microsoft, Hill said.

Acer has traditionally not put pricing and availability information on its normal Web site and does not plan to do so going forward, Hill said. Such information will be limited to shopacer.com, he said.

The new Web site will increase the visibility of Acer products in the small-business, SOHO and consumer markets, Hill said. However, prices for the tablet PC, notebook PCs and desktop PCs featured there will be higher than the price solution providers can offer. This pricing plan, combined with links to solution providers, will help complement Acer's channel plans, he said.

Products purchased via shopacer.com are not shipped to customers by Acer, but are instead drop-shipped from Tech Data, Hill said.